Published in Scientific Papers. Series "Management, Economic Engineering in Agriculture and rural development", Vol. 19 ISSUE 1
Written by Dengle Yuniyus GIROH, Apagu Dawa MEDUGU, Dauna YAKUBU

Nigeria is fundamentally an agricultural country, at least 71% of Nigerian workforce is engaged in agriculture and over 90% of Nigerian agricultural output comes from small holder farmers most of whom dwell in remote rural and sometimes hard to reach areas. It is in these rural areas that over 60% of the over 180 million Nigerian population live and work. Despite all these abundant human and natural resources, Nigeria is still unable to feed her citizens due to low productivity which could be attributed to low fertilizer use, low improved seed utilization and low government expenditure on agriculture. The success of any agricultural revolution is not only on access of farmers to modern agricultural inputs, especially fertilizer and seeds but efficient allocation of resources. The study was conducted to examine Productivity and Resource Use Efficiency among Beneficiaries of E-Wallet Input Distribution System Component of Growth Enhancement Support Scheme (GESS) in Adamawa State Nigeria where data on 315 beneficiaries were collected and analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Result of the socio-economic analysis revealed that respondents were small scale farmers who were young with mean family size of five people and with mean experience of 7 years. Production function analysis showed that the Cobb-Douglas functional form was selected as the lead equation and showed that the coefficient of multiple determination (R2) of 0.7781 implied that about 77.81% of the variations in total output of respondents were explained by production factors included in the model. The overall model is significant at 1% level as shown by the magnitude of the F-statistics. Return to scale (RTS) was 1.45 showing increasing return to scale on the production surface (rational zone of production). The estimated coefficients for seeds, fertilizers, herbicides, farm size and hired labour were positive and statistically significant at 1% level. Marginal analysis of input utilization among respondents revealed that fertilizers, farm size and hired labour were over utilized while seeds and herbicides were underutilized. This shows that beneficiaries of the E wallet system are not efficient in their production. The study recommended the need for government to increase extension support services for farmers, consistent and sustainable policies to encourage production in the country.

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